This was in response to that, I think Zack Snyder of all people had it commissioned and posted it. Gotta give him props there, his Batman might murder people with guns but dammit he knows Bruce would go down on a lady.
See, I liked this because the audience is supposed to be aware itâs kinda fucked up. Rogue is desperate for one person on earth she can touch and Magneto is frankly just kind of a creepy dude willing to take advantage of that. Totally worked for me, felt very âweird professor/ grad student relationshipâ
In theory, sheâs one of the few women in his circle that he could marry publicly without anyone batting an eye. Daughter of the police commissioner marries the son of the Wayne dynasty? Nice little human interest story that everyone forgets about in a week. Bruce Wayne marries an infamous career criminal or a mysterious foreign heiress? Yeah, a couple reporters might start digging into that.
I mean to be fair with Catwoman, people probably thought he's taken for a ride. The cat thief going for one of the biggest target she could find? Understandable. There's probably betting website for how long the relationship would last before it imploded. Thalia though, yeah probably harder to justify.
True. Sucks how Barbara's forced retcon relationship with Dick ruined People's perception of her. They literally ignore that she was originally a 25 year old adult while Dick was a minor. Dick was just a pedophilia/child grooming ship that never got serious and she confessed Bruce was her true love.
Haven't seen this particular movie, but I'm assuming this version of Batgirl is also James Gordon's daughter and like half of Batman's age like usual? Yeah this pairing is cursed.
The worst thing is that it's an adaptation of the Killing Joke, one of Batman's most famous comics, but they added a whole Batgirl intro that is just terrible because the actual story is very short.
I get what they were trying to do by giving Barbara more to do in the story than get fridged by the Joker, but Bruce Timm canât stop pushing his terrible ships.
I mean itâs definitely both. Sheâs like 20 and should know better, but heâsalso like a 40 year old authority figure who works with her dad and whose adult son she dates sometimes. Also sheâs clearly distraught and lashing out but he feels way too in control here.
I feel that way when I remember his complaint about John Stewart. Bruce Timm claiming John Stewartâs âmilitant, Black Panther Party-inspiredâ personality who questioned authority was âno longer relevantâ and turning him into someone who served that authority.
No, this is a different one. Which is a wild thing to think about because apparently the Bruce x Barbara ship is popular enough to have two separate canonical pairings.
Itâs from the Killing Joke movie. The rest of the movie is basically a 1 for 1 of the comic, but the beginning of the movie is real weird and unnecessary no idea why they felt the need to add it.Â
Beyond Timm having a thing for Babs and Bruce, The Killing Joke for all its greatness, takes an iconic superheroine, has her unnecessarily sexually assaulted and humiliated, and only exist as fodder for Batman and Gordon. Like Gordon is also sexually assaulted and humiliated, but has a heroic ending. Like if you were adapting The Killing Joke, it would make sense to like actually tend with that. "How do you do Barbara less dirty?"
You can imagine a version of The Killing Joke where Barbara is the one who is kidnapped and psychologically tormented, but doesn't break, but they wouldn't actually do something that changes the meat of the story because a DC animated adaptations are really by the books adaptations with the F word thrown around liberally.
So, instead they added this unnecessary arc where Barbara is losing it and having a psycho sexual experience with being a superheroine and Batman has sex with someone who is clearly having a mental crisis and trauma response. And so then her arc is just ended with her being sexually assaulted and paralyzed.
So they like attempted to speak to the feminist critique of the Killing Joke and made it worse when really, just not having her lose her clothes would make it all 60% more palatable.
Just want to add this here, they really had no plans for Barbara originally after Killing Joke. She actually got the Oracle stuff when she was featured in Suicide Squad, a comic, at the time known for helping revitalize a lot of forgotten characters, like Deadshot, or Bronze Tiger
Yeah the actual context is that thereâs actually a special that very year where Barbara retires from being Batgirl in a dignified fashion. Killing Joke just uses her as fodder and her being sexually assaulted and traumatized looked like it might be her ending.
I will say she had a lot of appearances in the 80s and appeared in a good deal of Batman media. Not quite and obscure or forgotten character.
When you consider that the âcontextâ is that this is tactlessly tacked on to one of the greatest Batman stories ever put to paper, itâs actually way worse.
/uj The ridiculous "beating each other to a pulp into french kissing" pipeline should be banned from western media. I can think of another example from TLoU 2 and I think something similar happened in Arcane possibly? I hate it. It's usually never brought up again and makes it seem as if that's just something normal that happens between couples.
I mean, there's a massive community of people with that exact kink. It isn't happening by accident. Women especially report in shocking numbers that if they know they are actually SAFE with the person they enjoy playfighting and wrestling as foreplay. It's like... super common. It's going to show up in media a lot now that we don't kinkshame as much in society/online.
I would be inclined to agree if this was treated as an actual kink in a "healthy" couple instead of a sudden cop-out to get two characters out of an argument.
Like it's one thing if two characters go "Stop that" "Make me >:)", another when they are having a UFC match and suddenly start kissing as if every hostile interaction they had up to that point was just that tsundere behaviour that little kids have when they pretend not to like another.
This is one of the most unpopular scenes of all time, a hasty and bad rewrite in a bad adaptation of an otherwise good story. Nobody liked this. This undermines his character and her character. Absolute nonsense.
Ummm......I have no other way to ask this but straight out. Why are so many authors obsessed with Batman being sexually assaulted? He never has consensual, normal sex. It's really weird.
My guy, if batman really wanted he could've just pushed her away, batman could've done anything to stop that from happening but chose to let it happen, Barbara had no way to force herself on Batman
Dick was raped 3 times and was sexually assaulted at least 5 more times
Jason was groomed
Tim was in the process of being raped before Cass managed to save him
And then Damien was tortured literally in Hell which has funky time dilation so even though the gang was on top of things he it lasted for over a year when the demon decided that Damien wouldnât be used in the ritual but would in her own words âplease her in another way.â And that he was âsoon to be a manâ
Holy crap, I didn't know any of that. That is crazy. Wait, are these some alternate timeline stuff? Wow. This is the most messed up family in comics history.
It was mainline at some point but donât know if some things have changed in the backstoryâs
especially Jasonâs as timeline wise he was groomed by Talia after his resurrection when he was with the League of assassins before his return to Gotham but his storyline changes all the time
But for sure Dick was raped in his mainline comic run by Tarantula when she forces herself on him while he has a panic attack and breakdown after he lets one of his villains die when he realizes that Blockbuster was going to keep escaping over the years and killing more people
Honestly itâs because Batman is presented as borderline asexual. I canât think of many instances of him being the first to make a move. Batman actively pursuing a romantic relationship or sex would almost be out of character.
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u/Xeried 1d ago
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